n to Mlle. Dupuy's performance. She felt that she
owed so much to this cat, under whose care her reputation for skill on
the harp had become universal, that when she died she left him, in her
will, one agreeable house in town and another in the country. To this
bequest she added a revenue sufficient to supply all the requirements
of a well-bred tom-cat, and at the same time she left pensions to
certain persons whose duty it should be to wait upon him. Her ignoble
family contested the will, and there was a long suit. Moncrif gives
a handsome double-plate illustration of this incident. Mlle. Dupuy,
sadly wasted by illness, is seen in bed, with her cat in her arms,
dictating her will to the family lawyer in a periwig; her physician is
also present.

This leads me to speak of the illustrations to _Les Chats_, which
greatly add to its value. They were engraved by Otten from original
drawings by Coypel. In another edition the same drawings are engraved
by Count Caylus. Some of them are of a charming absurdity. One, a
double plate, represents a tragedy acted by cats on the roof of a
fashionable house. The actors are tricked out in the most magnificent
feathers and furbelows, but the audience consists of common cats.
Cupid sits above, with his bow and fluttering wings. Another plate
shows the mausoleum of the Duchess of Lesdiguieres' cat, with a marble
pussy of heroic size, upon a marble pillow, in a grove of poplars.
Another is a medal to "Chat Noir premier, ne en 1725," with the proud
inscription, "Knowing to whom I belong, I am aware of my value." The
profile within is that of as haughty a tom as ever shook out his
whiskers in a lady's boudoir.

SMART'S POEMS

POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. _By Christopher Smart, A.M., Fellow of
Pembroke-Hall, Cambridge. London: Printed for the Author, by W.
Strahan; And sold by J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul's
Churchyard. MDCCLII_.

The third section of Robert Browning's _Parleyings with certain People
of Importance in their Day_ drew attention to a Cambridge poet of whom
little had hitherto been known, Christopher Smart, once fellow of
Pembroke College. It may be interesting, therefore, to supply some
sketch of the events of his life, and of the particular poem which
Browning has aptly compared to a gorgeous chapel lying perdue in
a dull old commonplace mansion. No one can afford to be entirely
indifferent to the author of verses which one of the greatest of
moder